South Africa Takes Notice of a Multiracial Party

By SUZANNE DALEY

Published: June 29, 1998

JOHANNESBURG, June 28—
At first they seemed a mismatched couple promising an unlikely alliance: One is a black politician who defied South Africa's former white-supremacist Government, the other an Afrikaner regarded as a key figure in that Government.

But for months now, the two have been barnstorming the country pledging to build a multiracial political party to challenge President Nelson Mandela's largely black-supported African National Congress. To the surprise of many political analysts, they are making headway.

With little more than a year to go before presidential and parliamentary elections, the new party held its first congress this weekend, formally electing leaders and adopting a platform. The black politician, Bantu Holomisa, was voted president of the party, called the United Democratic Movement. The Afrikaner and former theoretician of the National Party, Roelf Meyer, declined to run for the top post and became deputy.

In addressing the delegates, Mr. Holomisa said he wanted the party to concentrate on fighting crime and narrowing the gap between rich and poor. But he quickly made clear that he was not attacking the rich, most of whom are white and many of whom feel beleaguered by veiled and not so veiled criticism coming from Mr. Mandela's party.

''Our policies will insure that the enlarging of the economic cake is done by enriching the poor, not by impoverishing the wealth creators,'' Mr. Holomisa said.

He said a safe South Africa was needed to stop ''white flight.''

''Let us work together so that we can carry the country forward to a new future,'' he said. ''We are not each other's enemies.''

The party issued its first policy document, outlining an anti-crime strategy that included having a referendum on reinstituting the death penalty, as well as confiscating crime syndicates' property and using the proceeds to aid victims.

Early on, the party was largely dismissed as a curiosity. Many analysts shrugged off the two leaders as political outcasts trying vainly to keep their careers alive. But polls show that the group has gained respectable support for a group barely nine months old. The A.N.C., however, remains by far the dominant party, with 54 percent support.

The most recent poll, by the Markinor polling group, showed the new party with the support of about 5 percent of the country's voters. And the support does indeed come from a mixed group, roughly reflecting the country's racial profile. The poll said its support was 70 percent black, 16 percent white, 8 percent ''colored,'' or mixed race, and 4 percent Indian.

Mr. Meyer had been widely viewed as the man most likely to take over the largely white-supported National Party after former President F. W. de Klerk. He is credited with pulling voters from the National Party, which created apartheid.

Mr. Meyer, 50, resigned from the National Party abruptly last year after Mr. de Klerk removed him from a key party position. The dismissal apparently occurred because of pressure from the more conservative members of the party, who were uneasy with Mr. Meyer's talk about the need to reorganize.

Mr. Holomisa, in the meantime, is pulling voters from the A.N.C., where he was once seen as a favorite of Mr. Mandela. But Mr. Holomisa, 43, was drummed out of the party for insubordination in 1996.

He is a fiery orator who was a major general in the Transkei, one of the apartheid-era enclaves carved out for blacks and called homelands. He took over the Government there in a coup in 1987 and then, in defiance of South Africa pressure, allowed the African National Congress to operate from there as it fought apartheid.

But in recent years he started complaining about corruption among his comrades and disclosed that Mr. Mandela had accepted contributions from a casino owner, Sol Kerzner, who has been accused of bribing homeland officials for licenses.

The new party is not necessarily in for an easy ride. Mr. Meyer could still face questions about his past. During recent hearings before the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, some witnesses suggested that he had known about the former Government's chemical weapons program.

In addition, money continues to be an issue. Mr. Holomisa had barely been elected when he began appealing to big business.

The party is also asking for Government financing and has said it might consider appealing to the courts if it doesn't get any. Current legislation provides money only to those parties that have members in Parliament.

''Fighting an election without money is difficult,'' Mr. Holomisa said, ''even given the level of commitment of our supporters.''